**** and Bull!

Yes it is 'political correctness' gone mad, or rather perhaps simply that the whole world is now irremediably insane.

One may not, it seems, on the RSPB website refer to a male bird as a 'cock'. One cannot rather in a literal sense, for any attempted use of the word is at once replaced with "****". Mustn't frighten the horses apparently, so the software hacks it out automatically. (Presumably a ****erel is a complete avis non grata!)

We also read that the firemen of Greater Manchester are to be disciplined for choosing not to rest on health and safety approved chairs that they find uncomfortable, preferring a sleeping bag on the non-risk-assessed floor!

Children - there is no escape at any age - have been banned from playing in a quiet cul-de-sac in Leicestershire because...well, because they have by the Council.

One cannot work, rest or play without the fell hand of officialdom bearing down upon one. That - never forgetting Iraq - is T. Blair's 'legacy' to an ungrateful and increasingly unhappy nation.

(You will be, no doubt, delighted and reassured to learn that I have, today, been approved as a Fellow of the Society of Great Grumps.)

Oh and, by the way, one may talk of 'tits' though not ****s when speaking of birds say the RSPB. Discrimination upon absurdity!